Whigs

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Whigs. The Whigs were one of the two main political parties in Britain between the later 17th and mid-19th cents. The term, which derived from ‘whiggamore’, the name by which the Scots covenanters had been derogatorily known, was first used by the Tories during the Exclusion crisis to brand the opponents of James, duke of York. Whiggery thus began as an oppositional and populist ideology, which saw political authority stemming from the people, a ‘contract’ existing between them and their king, whom they might resist if he overrode their interests. The Whigs naturally placed emphasis on parliamentary, as opposed to monarchical, authority, while their libertarian creed made them espouse toleration for protestant dissenters. Early Whig principles played a key part in shaping the 1689 revolution settlement, though the Whigs themselves soon became divided over their attitudes to power-holding. Court Whigs ignored the party's populist attitudes and recognized the monarch's position in a ‘mixed’ or ‘balanced’ constitution. Their experience in office 1694–8 gave them a pragmatic view of government; they supported the wars against Louis XIV, sought partnership with London's extensive business interests, and made beneficial use of patronage. Under their aristocratic Junto leaders they acquired remarkable cohesion as a parliamentary party and achieved effective electoral organization. The smaller group of country Whigs remained critical of government, and under Harley in the later 1690s were absorbed into the ‘new Tory Party’. As firm supporters of the Hanoverian succession the Whigs presided over George I's accession in 1714 and afterwards engineered the long-term proscription of their Tory rivals. The resulting ‘Whig oligarchy’ achieved a hitherto unseen stability in political life over the next few decades, with power concentrated in the hands of the great Whig families. Even so, Whig discontent with Walpole's administration grew appreciably in the 1730s and helped to topple him in 1742.

By the mid-1750s the ruling ‘old corps’ Whigs under Pelhamite direction were losing their party motivation under the vicissitudes of factionalism, and George III's antipathy to party resulted in many being removed from office. By the 1760s all politicians regarded themselves loosely as Whigs, but the term was consciously appropriated by the remnants of the old corps who had regrouped as an aristocratic country party led by Rockingham. Their consciousness as a ‘party’ was promoted by Burke in the 1770s and 1780s, with economical reform and the reduction of the power of the crown essential to their evolving ideology. The political crisis at the end of the American war brought them briefly to office until Rockingham's sudden death in July 1782. In 1783 they were the driving force behind the Fox–North coalition, but the king's long-standing hatred of Fox hastened their dismissal, enabling him to appoint the younger Pitt to head a government of essentially non-party Whigs. The Rockingham Whigs, now led by the duke of Portland and Charles James Fox, split in 1794 over their reaction to the French Revolution, with ‘conservative’ Whigs under Portland joining Pitt's administration, and the Foxites remaining in opposition. The latter kept alive the name of Whig, associating it with political, religious, and social reform, thereby contributing to the ideological context of the Reform Act of 1832. The mid-19th cent. saw Whiggery largely subsumed into liberalism, though some, like Devonshire, alienated by Gladstone's concession of Irish Home Rule in 1886, finished up in the Conservative Party.

Andrew Hanham

Whigs. The English Whigs originated as opponents of the succession to the throne of the future James II. Later they provided the most committed supporters of the revolution of 1688. From the 1690s, however, their transformation into a party of government (after 1714 the only party of government) gave them an increasingly oligarchic character, the radical implications of the original Whig appeal to a contract between rulers and ruled being developed only by the minority of commonwealthmen. From the late 1760s the name Whig was revived, in a new, exclusive sense, by followers of the marquis of Rockingham, who attacked what they claimed was a revival of arbitrary royal power and denounced their ministerial opponents as Tories. This new Whig Party opposed the wars against America and revolutionary France (though the latter issue produced a conservative secession led by the duke of Portland), and developed a programme of administrative reform, parliamentary reform, and Catholic emancipation.

In Ireland the defenders of the sole right and opponents of the treaty of Limerick formed an embryonic Whig Party, but clear‐cut party divisions appeared only from 1703–4. As in Britain, Whigs defended ‘Revolution principles’ and advocated tough measures against Catholics and Jacobites. They also advocated tolerance for dissenters in the name of Protestant unity, although given the numerical strength of Irish Presbyterianism, they were notably less enthusiastic than their English counterparts about the admission of dissenters to full political rights.

From 1782 the English Whig Party saw the Ponsonbys as the potential nucleus of a sister party in Ireland. However, it was only after the regency crisis that a Whig Party emerged in the Irish parliament, uniting patriots like Grattan and Charlemont with the Ponsonbys, the earl of Shannon (see Boyle), and other political interests now out of favour. An Irish Whig Club was established in Dublin in June 1789, followed by a Northern Whig Club in Belfast (Feb. 1790), and smaller clubs in other centres. These were generally dominated by aristocrats and landed gentry, although two, the Belfast Whig Club and the Dublin‐based Whigs of the capital, were more middle class in character. Basing themselves on the constitution of 1688 ‘as re‐established in 1782’, the Whigs advocated the reduction of government patronage, the exclusion of office holders from parliament, and financial accountability by the executive to parliament. From 1793 they also advocated parliamentary reform. The parliamentary following, initially 90 or more, slumped to 14 by 1797, as the middle ground of moderate reform had been eroded by sectarian and political polarization. However, some individuals, like Grattan, carried their Whig affiliation into the united parliament after the Act of Union, and George Ponsonby led the party in the Commons during 1808–17.

From the mid–1830s ‘Whig’ was replaced as a party label by Liberal, but was still used to describe aristocratic supporters of moderate reform from above, many of whom moved over the next few decades into the Conservative Party.

Whigs The Whigs were one of the two main political parties in Britain between the later 17th and mid‐19th cents. The term, which derived from ‘whiggamore’, the name by which the Scots covenanters had been derogatorily known, was first used by the Tories during the Exclusion crisis to brand the opponents of James, duke of York. Whiggery thus began as a distinctly oppositional and populist ideology, which saw political authority stemming from the people, a ‘contract’ existing between them and their king, whom they might resist if he overrode their interests. Early Whig principles played a key part in shaping the 1689 revolution settlement. As firm supporters of the Hanoverian succession the Whigs presided over George I's accession in 1714 and afterwards engineered the long‐term proscription of their Tory rivals. The resulting ‘Whig oligarchy’ achieved a hitherto unseen stability in political life over the next few decades, with power concentrated in the hands of the great Whig families.

By the 1760s all politicians regarded themselves loosely as Whigs, but the term was consciously appropriated and used by the remnants of the old corps who had regrouped as an aristocratic country party led by Rockingham. Their consciousness as a ‘party’ was promoted by Burke in the 1770s and 1780s, with economical reform and the reduction of the power of the crown essential to their evolving ideology. The political crisis at the end of the American war brought them briefly to office until Rockingham's sudden death in July 1782. The Rockingham Whigs, now led by the duke of Portland and Charles James Fox, split in 1794 over their reaction to the French Revolution, with ‘conservative’ Whigs under Portland joining Pitt's administration, and the Foxites remaining in opposition. The latter kept alive the name of Whig, associating it with political, religious, and social reform. The mid‐19th cent. saw Whiggery largely subsumed into liberalism, and the Whig label disappeared from political vocabulary.

Whigs Semi-formal parliamentary grouping in the UK from the late-17th to the mid-19th centuries. The word Whig was used by the Tory supporters of James II for politicians who wished to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. The Whig Party thus became those people who promoted the Glorious Revolution (1688) and who applauded the Hanoverian succession of 1714. Between 1714 and the accession of George III in 1760, the Tories were so discredited by association with the Jacobites that most politicians became Hanoverian Whigs, even in opposition to a Whig ministry. In the reign of George III, Toryism gradually reasserted itself. Whiggism became the party of religious toleration, parliamentary reform, and opposition to slavery. From the appointment of William Pitt (the Younger) as prime minister in 1783 until 1830, the Whigs remained in opposition (with one brief exception). They returned to office under Lord Grey, who passed the Great Reform Act of 1832. By the mid-19th century, they had come to be replaced by, or known as, the Liberal Party.